ALBERTON -- Four teams are still in the hunt for the Royal Canadian Legion Dominion Curling Championship and, remarkably, they account for two of the pairings in Wednesday morning’s final round-robin draw at Western Community Curling Club here.
Manitoba/Northwestern Ontario is at 4-1 and meets P.E.I. (3-2) and Nova Scotia/Nunavut (4-1) plays Saskatchewan (3-2) in Wednesday’s 9 a.m. draw.
The other game on the ice Wednesday morning is between British Columbia/Yukon (1-4) and Newfoundland and Labrador (0-5). Neither of those teams is in the hunt for Dominion hardware. Neither is Quebec which has finished play with a 3-3 record.
A win by either Manitoba/NW Ontario or Nova Scotia/Nunavut would determine the recipient of the national trophy.
Of course, things would get really interesting if both P.E.I. and Saskatchewan were to win their games in the final draw, as that would create a scenario P.E.I. skip Mel Bernard mentioned as a possibility earlier in the week, a four-way tie for first place. There is no play-off among teams in the Dominion Curling championship, but there is one afternoon time slot available to break ties. An awards banquet is set for Wednesday evening at St. Anthony’s Legion, the host legion for this year’s national championship.
In Tuesday’s morning draw, P.E.I. gave up a first-end steal of four and never recovered, losing to Nova Scotia 8-5. Quebec defeated Newfoundland and Labrador 9-2 and Manitoba/NW Ontario doubled BC/Yukon 6-3.
During the afternoon draw NS/Nu moved into a tie for first place with an idle Man/NW Ont with a 9-4 win over Newfoundland and Labrador, P.E.I. kept its hopes alive with a 7-3 win over BC/Yukon, and Saskatchewan moved back into contention with an 11-1 win over Quebec.
